Fermented Foods: Harnessing the Power of Microorganisms
Humans have fermented foods, be they vegetables, grains or beverages, for thousands of years. Fermentation has the power to preserve food while also altering its [...]
Calling All Drones
On Monday, October 9th, Greg Crutsinger woke to an ordinary sort of day. He was looking forward to the week. He was launching a [...]
A Tree’s Life (A New Citizen Science Project)
Would you give a few minutes a year to reveal the future of forests? What would be the easiest citizen science project ever? Watching paint dry? Falling off a log? Maybe. But what would you, or anyone else, learn from that? We are starting a citizen science project almost as easy but much more important. Its called A Tree’s Life and all you need to do is monitor red maple growth in your yard. We even give you the supplies. It’s really just one supply called a dendrometer, and it does most of the work.
March, 2017. The month you got to name a new creature.
Help us in this long honored tradition of naming things of importance. We have dozens of yeast to name and we want each of them to have a story. Tweet us your suggestion and an explanation of why you have chosen a particular name. If you need more than 140 characters, screen capture the text. We will decide what names make the most sense for our particular yeasts and include them in a future peer-reviewed manuscript. Forever after these yeasts will have these names. These names you helped create.
#NewYeastName Activity
Educators: We’d love to have your students help us name our new yeasts. Here’s some information to start the discussion with your students so that they can learn about the science of yeast.
Does a cat’s personality predict its hunting?
All pet owners know that every animal has its own personality. Some are shy, some are bold, some get freaked out by cucumbers. We also [...]
New Project: The Life of Pants
Do clothes contribute to body odor? Let’s be real: I have body odor, you have body odor, we all have body odor. Most of us [...]
What is your cat’s personality?
We've officially launched our Cat Personality Test -- which you can take even if you haven't tracked your own cat (you can even take it if you [...]
Back to School Heart Rate Checkup
**This is a guest post written by NC State undergraduate, Jakini Kauba. Jakini has been collaborating with Dr. Clint Penick on the Beats project, digging [...]
Help locate the coughing frog!
You may have heard of a newly described species of leopard frog, the Atlantic Coast leopard frog (Rana kauffeldi) -- also known as the coughing frog [...]
Why We #CitSci
Your Wild Life is relocating to the West Coast this week to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Citizen Science Association in San Jose, [...]
The Pump of Youth
What is the secret to a long life? The heartbeat of some animals may hold a clue. Studies have concluded that mammals get about a [...]
A Whole New Way of Doing Citizen Science, Maybe
Some parts of science are boring. Some are tedious. Some seem as though they will never end. It is these parts of science we tend [...]
Happy National Cat Day!
Apparently, cat fanciers love celebrating their feline friends with official holidays. A few months ago we were celebrating World Cat Day (August 8, 2014). And [...]
Belly Button Portraits – An Opportunity to Create Art through Science!
We’d like to think that over the course of the last few years, our Belly Button Biodiversity project has inspired quite a few things. We’re [...]